Upcoming Events

Tuesday, April 2 - ICJA Takes the Stage girls' outing to see Peter Pan

Wednesday, April 3 - in-school PSAT for sophomores

Sunday, April 7 - 18 Under 18 Awards Event honoring Jordanna Zwelling, Tali Weiss, Emma Lookatch, Mrs. Alise Gold and others @Pinstripes in Northbrook 5:30-8pm

Tuesday, April 9 - Torah Awards Presentation

Wednesday, April 10 - Israel Advocacy Meeting with Ald. Deborah Silverstein

Thursday, April 11 - ICJA Takes the Stage, Commemorating the Life of Batsheva Chaya Stadlan, z"l, generously sponsored by The Ralla Klepak Foundation for Education in the Performing Arts - Click here to reserve your spot

Thursday, April 18 - Wednesday, May 1 - Pesach Break

Thursday, May 2 - Classes resume

Tuesday, May 7 - Grandparents' Day - Click here to reserve your Grandparent spot

Friday, May 10 - Last day to receive 70% Give-Get credit for Dr. Edward A. Crown Scholarship Dinner ads and dinner reservations (after May 10, ads and reservations receive 50% Give-Get credit)

Wednesday, May 15 - Oratory Fair, 6pm

Tuesday, June 4 - Thursday, June 6 - Senior Retreat

Sunday, June 9 - Graduation

Monday, June 17 - Dr. Edward A. Crown Scholarship Dinner honoring Eric Rothner (Crown Leadership Award), Leslie Wortman (Crown Service Award), and Chavee Gottlieb (Educator of the Year Award) - Click here to reserve your ad and dinner reservation

Please join ICJA in this important campaign.

The Orthodox Union (OU) just launched a project to deliver 180,000 letters to the White House in support of Israel and as an appeal for the release of the hostages. Their goal is to deliver the letters on the 180th day since the hostages were captured by Hamas terrorists, next Wednesday, April 8.

On Thursday, all students took time out of their afternoon classes to sign letters as part of this project. (Pictured above: freshmen Ayelet Klein and Chavi Campbell in Mrs. Rachel Polsky's Western Civilization class)

If you have not done so already, please go online and send a letter. Click HERE or go to ou.org/180, choose team ICJA, then complete your own information. In addition, please spread the word to others.

Last Sunday, ICJA students and staff gathered in meaningful ways to celebrate Purim together.

Last Sunday, Purim, ICJA students came together in myriad ways to celebrate, including holding Purim seudot for students, delivering mishloach manot to staff and students, collecting charitable donations, and enjoying a fabulous ICGC Purim Chagiga at school on Leil Purim.

(Pictured here: Rabbi Louis Fliegelman's Purim seuda for freshman girls - pictured - and boys and their parents)

ICGC's Chagiga on Leil Purim saw over 90 girls celebrate, enjoying food, drinks, divrei Torah, and dancing.

Ida Crown Girls' Club's Purim Chagiga on Leil Purim brought over 90 girls together for a grand celebration. The evening's theme was "Once Upon a Purim." Approximately 90 girls enjoyed tasty treats, dirvrei Torah, and dancing along with fabulous DJ Tobi Goldfeder. A highlight of the evening was the incredible Purim shpiel put on by ICGC 11th and 12th graders.

Rabbi Kobi Greenfield's 9th Grade Boys' Talmud Class raised over $7,000 for JNF's "Israel Resilience Campaign".

On Purim day, Rabbi Kobi Greenfield's 9th grade boys' Talmud students boarded a party bus to visit homes in our community where they danced, sang, and shmoozed, raising over $7000 for JNF's "Israel Resilience Campaign." The boys sang and danced during their in-person Purim visits and also shared an online link for those they couldn't see in person.

Kol hakavod to Rabbi Greenfield, Solly Robinson, Archer Gradstein, Ami Appel, Gabe Schreiber, Gabe Nudman, William Moscovitch, Judah Well, Nathan Rothner, Megill Hameiri, Noah Ehrlich and Yair Elbaz - and special thanks to Mr. Ami and Mrs. Aviva Robinson for helping with all the arrangements.

Wrestling Team Purim Seuda

ICJA's Wrestling Team enjoyed a Purim seuda at Coach Doug Klein's house, complete with fabulous food and divrei Torah.

On Monday, Shushan Purim, ICJA students celebrated together as a school.

On Monday, Shushan Purim, students enjoyed a full-filled morning.

After davening and a special breakfast, students boarded busses to Top Golf, where they played golf games and enjoyed soft drinks.

Returning to school, students were greeted by Big Bird, their Dean for the day, before enjoying a pizza lunch followed by a faculty-senior basketball game.

The Shushan Purim festivities concluded with an all-school viewing of this year's senior boys' Purim shpiel.

Students learned "stop the bleed" techniques.

Students in ICJA's Hugo's Heroes learned "stop the bleed" techniques at their Tuesday night meeting. Hatzalah member Karli Salinger '05 brought Endeavor Health's nurses John Cram and Joan Casey and trauma surgeon Dr. Arthur Berg DO to ICJA to teach what to do to help patients who are in danger of bleeding out. Students learned how to apply pressure, bandages and tourniquets, how to pack a bleed, and how to assess and stabliize a paitient that, chas v'shalom, suffered a trauma.

What do Shabbat and pursuing justice have in common?

Juniors in Mrs. Pogonitz’s Navi class are learning Yirmiyahu.

This week, they discussed the fact that Hashem gave Jews two instructions in this Sefer in order to save themselves: first to keep Shabbat, then to display righteousness and justice.

Students learned Malbim's observations on this link: Malbim quotes Rambam to say that both Shabbat and righteousness have the same end goal of perfecting the world, one method (Shabbat) through thought, and the other (justice) through action.

(Pictured above: Koby Engel, Ranon Ginsberg, and Levi Polsky)

Students created comic dialogues featuring animals.

Juniors in Mrs. Eliora Lavi's Hebrew class are practicing giving directions in Hebrew and also are expanding their vocabulary about animals. These two topics came together this week as students presented comic dialogues they had written about visiting zoos, farms, and pet stores.

Pictured above: Aaron Hartman, Gabe Aberman, and Yitzchak Bock in front of the video of a monkey house at a zoo they discussed in their dialogue

Pictured above: Aidan Zuckerman and Jacob Friedman having a disagreement in Hebrew when Jacob walked into a pet store run by Aidan and asked to buy meat

Pictured above: Avner Frazin after presenting a debate with Ranon Ginsberg about a pet shop that sells highly unusual animals - and keeps them all together

Seniors transformed popular songs about the pressure of college, presonal identity, and empowerment.

Seniors in Mrs. Marsha Arons's Drama class are transforming popular songs that describe the pressures young adults face into spoken word pieces. Students are practicing communicating emotions through voice, gesture, and movement.

Pictured above: Ilana Schwartz, Noa Gavant, Jordanna Zwelling, Jakob Wortman, Aryeh Neiger, and Maayan Dallal practicing 2 Days into College

Pictured above: Aviva Dallal, Dina Osgood, and Sam Gorenstein practicing This is Me

Pictured above: Mrs. Arons providing feedback as students practice their preformances

Students are learning about 16 Medieval and Renaissance rabbis for JH March Madness.

Mrs. Zeffren’s Jewish History classes spent this week researching rabbis for their “JH March Madness” brackets. Students read about the life and works of 16 sages, including Rav Saadiah Gaon, Rashi, Seforno, Radak, Gersonides, Abrabanel, and others. After familiarizing themselves with the rabbeim, the students will begin to fill in their bracket based on each thinker’s lasting impact.

Pictured above: Yair Bell, Aiden Rich, Yoshi Bernstein, and Jonah Strahlberg

Pictured above: Yadidya Bechhofer and Avi Zayan

Pictured above: Max Kroll and Mia Weiss

Mrs. Alise Gold is being honored by Springboard Chicago.

Yasher kochecha to ICJA Tanach teacher and Mechanechet Mrs. Alise Gold on being recognized as a LEADer by @springboardchicago.

LEAD recognition (which stands for Leader, Educator, Advisor, Dugma/Example) was created by Springboard, Chicago’s Teen Engagement Initiative, to recognize outstanding adults each year who go above and beyond in their role of educating and caring for Jewish teens.

Mrs. Gold will be honored, along with Springboard Chicago's 18 Under 18 nominees, seniors Jordanna Zwelling and Emma Lookatch and junior Tali Weiss, on Sunday, April 7, at Pinstripes in Northbrook 5:30-8pm.

Watch "Connect with ICJA," our newest video for prospective students - and share it with people you know who'd like to learn more about ICJA!

Watch this moving video documenting some of the volunteer activities our seniors participated in during their month-long Mission to Israel!

ICJA Dean Rabbi Leonard Matanky has released an e-book containing his letters to parents during the ICJA Senior Mission, plus additional reflections and divrei Torah.

Click HERE to download Missions: The First 100 Days of the Gaza War by Rabbi L. Matanky.

In addition to many thousands of physical books and journals, ICJA's Learning Commons contains tens of thousands of online books, journal articles and other resources, including subscriptions to newspapers such as The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, the Encyclopedia Britannica, and more. Students are able to access these resources through our portal.

Please stop by our librarian Mrs. Steinberg's desk in the Learning Commons or email her at  librarian@icja.org her to pick up your updated passwords to access our online material. ICJA's subscriptions are available at icja.libguides.com/home.

Review ICJA on Niche.com and enter a sweepstakes.

Help let people know how fabulous ICJA is! Whether you're a parent, student, teacher, or alumnus/alumna, the popular school ranking website Niche.com wants to hear from you. Plus, every person who reviews ICJA (or any other school) is automatically entered into a monthly $1,000 sweepstakes by Niche.com. For more information and to leave a review, click here.

Do you have school-related news you'd like to see in this newsletter? Let us know!

If you have exciting ICJA-related news to share about classes, sports, clubs, or other projects, please tell us! Send news items and/or photos to Dr. Yvette Miller, Director of Communications at ymiller@icja.org. Your items can enhance our newsletter and ICJA's social media presence.

Announcing ICCC: Ida Crown Cycling Club!

Join our New Alumni Facebook Group

We are excited to announce that we have a new private Facebook group called “ICJA Official Alumni Page.” It is a space for alumni from all graduating years to join. We will periodically post alumni reunions, events, fundraising opportunities, information about ICJA today, and news.

We are proud to have some families with us for four generations. If you are an alum, please join the group HERE and be sure to share the link with your family, friends, and fellow graduates. You can also share this link: https://www.facebook.com/share/UeTsqg16DDx4JHGK/?mibextid=hubsqH. Thanks for staying connected to ICJA!

Please reach out to Ilana Levy at ilevy@icja.org if you have any questions about this new effort.

Last summer, ICJA gave its Class of '23 alumni the second edition of our directory listing ICJA alumni who live in Israel and have graciously offered to open their homes to recent ICJA grads who are currently spending a gap year in Israel.

Thank you to the many alumni who have reached out to us, offering to host.

The directory was sent out to the emails of '22 grads that we have on file. If you have any questions or would like to update our contact information to help recent ICJA grads obtain a copy, please contact Dr. Yvette Miller, ICJA Director of Communications, at ymiller@icja.org.

We are still taking submissions from alumni who are willing to host, to include in future copies of this directory. Please contact Dr. Miller to be included.